1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for acquiring content through a communication line.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a system for transmitting content including audio and video from a server apparatus to a client through a network, there is a content delivery system disclosed in patent document 1. In this system, a delivery request for plural pieces of content is transmitted from the client to the server. When receiving the delivery request, the server transmits the content in a streaming format. The client stores the transmitted content in a buffer, and reproduces the content in the order of storage. Incidentally, the client monitors the remaining amount of the buffer, and periodically notifies the server of the remaining amount. The server controls the transmission speed of the content based on the remaining amount notified from the client. When the transmission of the first content is completed, the server starts to transmit next content.
[Patent Document 1] JP-A-2006-31394
In the system of the patent document 1, the timing of start of transmission of content is mainly controlled by the server and is determined. In this system, when there are plural clients and delivery requests of different groups are received from the plural clients, the server monitors the transmission timing of content for each of the clients, and load is applied to the server. As a method of reducing the load applied to the server, there is a method in which transmission of content is started after a request from the client is issued. According to this method, since the server has only to transmit the content after the request is issued, it is not necessary to monitor the transmission timing for each of the clients, and the load is reduced. However, when the content is continuously reproduced, and when next content is requested after reproduction of content under reproduction is ended, since time is required for the content to reach the client, a silent period occurs from the end of the reproduction of the content under reproduction to the start of the reproduction of the next content. For example, when content is tunes in an album of live performance or an album of classic music, and when the tunes in the album are continuously reproduced, since a sound is produced also during a period between a tune and a tune in the album, when the silent period occurs, unnaturalness is felt.